Sunday, September 8, 2013

TIAs, transient ischemic attacks and ramblings

I am writing this one because so many times we do not know what is really going on. I had a customer in the store on Saturday who was talking about being placed on blood pressure medicine and she came in looking flushed and "clammy" and clearly was not feeling good....said things like her hubby told her to "shake it off" etc. etc. and I was telling her "Please take care of yourself this is very serious I recently had a stroke and it is the silent killer" and I gave her suggestions on what she needed to do for herself and to stop thinking it was no big deal that it would just go away--yada yada.....and she thanked me over and over again.... for treating her like she was one of my kids (not simply a customer) LOL!And I had already had a conversation with my Niece Heather about how I maybe had a TIA attack on Friday....and Heather told me...that I am telling other people about how serious these things are and I need to follow my own advice.Okay... so I have talked about my initial "stroke" and the recovery and that I do not have high cholesterol, my carotid arteries test showed minimal blockage for my age, and that I already take blood pressure meds and that after the stroke I check it twice a day.Prior to Friday... I have not had any incidents since the stroke first happened.Okay so I am at work.... the guys are gone on delivery..... I have a grilled cheese sandwich that I start to eat..... and damn cookie.... my teeth are numb like I have just gotten out of the dentist. The roof of my mouth is also numb. It seems like my left eye is kinda blurry but heck....sometimes my vision seems blurred anyways. So I am telling myself... "MaYbE Something is wrong". Then I feel that the bottom right side of my lip is numb and the bottom of my nose is tingling. But it is not as intense as when the stroke happened and I have had a lot of "numbness" situations prior to the stroke that the docs already have checked me for and I wasn't afraid or anything like that but I was thinking okay is this another stroke about to happen do I call 9-11 or what ?But it never got worse and eventually got better and when the guys got back from delivery I even felt a bit of relief that if something did happen that I could leave and go to the hospital.Anyways... I messaged my doc thru the Kaiser page and of course it has been the weekend. I'll get an answer back tomorrow and will go from there.I'm just not sure at what point in your life when you are totally aware that you need to go to emergency or to call 9-11. In some cases-- if this was a TIA it might mean that something more serious is still on the horizon. All I know is that my blood pressure was not high that morning or when I got home. It did not feel like an emergency. But maybe the reason that it did not feel like an emergency is the reason that this is indeed the silent killer?I'll follow up with this in another post after I hear from my doc tomorrow. All I know is that I am going to do everything that I possibly can to stay healthy and that I am not going to live my life in fear.But after "googling" TIA's.... maybe I should of been more afraid when this happened than I was. All I knew is that I had a business to run and that I was gonna do that unless the situation became an emergency. I was by myself and was not scared but was very aware since the first stroke happened..that things might have gotten bad in a hurry.But just like my Niece Heather reminded me on Saturday.... "Aunt Rhonda.... you need to follow the same advice that you just told our customer this could be serious"And I guess I am posting this for others out there (who tend to just blow things off all of the time like I do and simply think that it's just gonna go away and will get better. )Please all of you women out there...take care of yourselves.. don't take a lesson from me and think that you have a duty to take care of everyone else in your life first.Sometimes especially if you have a lot of people who do depend on you to be here for them....maybe you should call 9-11...maybe you should go to the hospital when things like this happen.I guess I'll find out tomorrow(LOL!) ------------------------------------------------------------------Okay so here's an update 09-10-2013I basically got chastised yesterday from the nurse for simply leaving a message for the doc over the weekend when no one was in the office.They put me on a blood thinner and I have a follow-up with neurologist next Monday. Told me that at any further onset of numbness to call 9-11 or get to hospital. Will update on anything new :)#stroke #TIA # transientischemicattacks #begoodtoyourself